An Unsent Letter
by everyday-deeds
Summary: Naomi Misora's last hours as shown in a letter, a bus ride, and her final leap to the self-inflicted death she hates. Character study of sorts. One-shot.


**A one-shot that I couldn't get out of my head no matter how hard I tried. Normally I would rate anything suicide-related 'M' out of respect for how serious it is, but I don't consider Naomi's death a normal suicide, as it's obviously instigated by Light through the Death Note. I wanted to try and convey the strange nature of her death as well as possible, so please let me know what you think!**

**I don't own _Death Note_.**

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><p><em>Dear Mom and Dad,<em>

_I wanted to tell you first that this action of mine has nothing to do with you. I couldn't have asked for better parents. Your love for me was incredible; not many mothers and fathers have enough confidence in their daughters to let them go to a foreign country and work in that foreign country's crime fighting force. Your support for me was everything I could have hoped for and more. _

_I know, then, that you probably want to know why I've done this to you. The truth is complicated, but I think you probably already know that it has something to do with Raye and his death. I know you kept leaving me messages after he died, telling me to come and talk to you. The truth is that I didn't want to face the condolences, not then. I thought I could do something to avenge him, make his death less meaningless. I thought that perhaps I could do something to stop this- this monster who killed him for no reason other than that Raye was doing his job._

_Oh, Raye- Mom, I know you must remember the first day I called you, telling you about him. I just- I wish could do a better job telling you how much he meant to me. I could tell you about how he was always putting his foot in his mouth, usually while he was trying to do the right thing in some way or another. I wish I could tell you how hard I laughed when he inadvertently insulted our boss on her retirement party by saying she was taking her leave after far too long a stay. I wish I could tell you how much I smiled when he came into work with a black eye and insisted he'd gotten a door opened on his face during a raid. A co-worker had told me the truth- that one of our newer agents had said something about me in an after-work visit to a bar, and Raye had immediately taken offense. We weren't even together when he did that._

_But even reading this over, I'm sure you're both saying to yourselves that it's not worth it- that I shouldn't be doing this just for him. And in a way you'd be right- it's not solely just for Raye. My god, I wish I could explain it, but I can't. It's a horrible, horrible compulsion, and I have no way to describe it. If I told you that the bells were tolling for me, you'd laugh even while staring uncomfortably at the letter, wondering if I'd lost my mind. Mom and Dad, I swear to you that I'm not mad- but I also swear that what I'm about to do doesn't feel like a choice. It's as though something is dragging me, physically dragging me down into some pit where there's nothing but darkness, and I can't see the bottom or feel the sides. It's as though the entire world has blurred and faded, and the only thing left for me is to leave it. And even then, that doesn't do justice to the feeling that I'm being forced, impeded, that there is something outside of me, using my limbs and knowledge and mind to make me do something that I would never in a thousand years consider doing. _

_Know that no matter how strange it may seem, I did not want this death to happen to me. But it has to happen. I wish I could do a better job explaining why and how, but I don't have the words. Because to a certain extent, I'm not sorry to go. I lost Raye and then failed him on top of that loss. In failing him, I've failed everyone, and for that reason it may not be such a bad thing that I'm cutting this short. I've killed so often in the course of my career that I think it's fitting that the last life I take is my own. _

_I love you both so much, and I am so sorry that this is the way it had to end. Please forgive me, and try to understand what I've said here._

_Your daughter now and always, _

_Naomi._

* * *

><p>The lone lamp in the corner of the small study cast a faint golden glow on the woman's dark hair and pale face. Her large grey eyes were blank and emotionless, but from the way the pen shook in her quivering hands, it was clear she was agitated. More than once she looked up, staring straight ahead at the blank wall above her desk, staring at nothing save whatever she was imagining. The window at her left was a black hole through which she glanced at the night fearfully. She shook her head in the way a person greets horrible news that is long-expected, but all the more unwelcome. But there was no one in the room to see her. Once she whipped her head suddenly to the door, as though she had heard someone knock or enter.<p>

She read the letter over and over again after signing it. Her lips moved faintly as she muttered phrases over and over again. Grabbing the pen that lay beside the letter on the desk, she held it over certain phrases pertaining to her death and made uncertain jabs to the paper, as though she was going to scratch over certain words and then thought better of it. Two tears trickled down the side of her face as she suddenly leaned over the letter and scribbled a postscript:

_P.S. No matter what this sounds to you, I did not want this. You have to believe me- I may die by my own hand, but not by my own will._

She leaned back and heaved a sigh that was almost a sob. "Raye," she whispered softly, over and over again. "Raye, Raye, oh, Raye. You against Kira- a child should have known how well that would turn out. Oh, Raye. Raye."

The hands on the black and white clock beside the door crept steadily onwards in a never-ending circle. For a long time the woman was silent, staring straight ahead of her with the pen still clutched in her fingers and the letter caught just under her left hand. At times she leaned forward as though to rise, but then would sink back as though the effort to stand was too much for her. The lone lamp in the room seemed to only make the shadows huddled in the corners darker.

At last she rose and set the pen down. Turning away from the desk, she walked across the room to the little red sofa where her black jacket lay. Slowly she pulled it over her shoulders, tears rolling down her cheeks all the while. As swiftly as she wiped them away they came, and she finally lowered her hand with an angry sigh. She looked at the clock and drew a long breath before glancing back at the desk.

With two quick strides she was standing before the desk. Snatching the letter up, she scanned it one last time, and then crumpled it suddenly. "My god, perhaps I am going mad," she whispered. "I could never have said everything I wanted to say. How could I possibly hope to convey any of this? It's better they don't know. It's better no one knows." Her voice was steady and strong, but the tears continued to slip down her cheeks as she tore the letter to shreds and stuffed the white scraps into her coat pocket. Where she was heading, they would be destroyed soon enough. The water would wipe away any ink, and the paper would decay even if it made its way out of her pocket from the depths where she would soon lie. Buttoning her coat, she shut off the lamp and made her way to the door. The night was bitterly cold. Invisible snowflakes caught on her eyelashes and melted on her cheeks. She locked the door of her apartment and leaned against it as though she was bearing a great weight on her shoulders. After a few seconds, she straightened up, and made her way down the pathway to the main street.

As she roamed the streets, she looked like a ghost. Once she passed a young man whose nose was buried in a book, and she flinched from him so quickly that he looked up to glare at her in surprise. But she did not even notice his reaction. She did not even look back.

A bus drew up to the street corner where she stood, its wheels giving off a crackling hiss on the asphalt. The bright lights of the city and the sky seemed garish as they reflected on the woman's dark hair and jacket. She moved into the white and red vehicle without a glance at the driver. Her large eyes flitted to the wall where the routes were given, but no name stood out. She decided to wait.

The bus wound its way through the streets of Tokyo and, by a series of stops and sharp turns, came to the end of its line in one of the suburbs. The woman got out, her dark boots clacking a little as they hit the pavement. Her hands were shaking all the while, and she jumped violently when the only other passenger disembarking, a little old woman in a dark coat with a kerchief on her head, brushed her shoulder. With terrifying speed the young woman spun around. "What?" she whispered, her voice a frenzied hiss. "I'm going! Don't you see, I'm going!"

The old woman stared at her for a moment. "Are you talking to me?"

Her voice was creaky and shrill, and it seemed to shake the younger woman out of a trance. Her large grey eyes seemed almost lost before they suddenly filled with tears. She shook her head suddenly and dashed off into the night, leaving the old woman staring after her.

* * *

><p>It was not fair.<p>

That was all Naomi could think as she finally came to the edge of the lake in one of the parks near the mountains of Japan. It had taken her so long to reach this wilderness area, and even then she had had to find a place where access was restricted, where no visitors or park keepers came, and where no one would pass for a while. Her jacket was damp and her face scratched from where bushes had scraped her. One of the cuts on her cheek stung every time a tear slipped down her face.

She had never been so angry or so heartbroken in her life.

All the while she had been riding the buses, she had seemed to hear the voice of Light Yagami whispering over and over again: "I am Kira." And the smile he had given her had been haunting her ever since she had turned away from him. The instant he had said those words, she had felt as though she had been overwhelmed and snapped in half by a wave of anguish and loss. Grief for Raye had threatened to break her entirely, and as if that was not enough, now everything she had done was completely worthless. This boy, this killer was someone she should have been able to recognize for what he was. And she had been completely taken in by his tricks and pleasant words, and the bitterness of her blindness was enough to choke her. The worst of it all was that she did want to die; ever since Raye had been killed in that wretched train station, she had been half-hoping for some way to see him again. She would have done anything for that, had there been anything she could have done.

But she would never have done this.

She would have dragged Raye's killer to the ground. She would have done everything in her power to make sure that the person cruel and narcissistic enough to determine who was worthy of life and death, and kill anyone who dared to think differently, was brought down in humiliation and agony. She had wanted to see this killer's face, lean in close and tell him that he was not even worth a tenth of Raye and the other agents, many of whom she had known personally.

She had gotten what she wanted. She had seen Kira's face. And then he had somehow overwhelmed her and broken her in one swift second.

Naomi asked herself over and over how he had done it, even as she clambered over the rocks and stones to reach a high cliff that overlooked one of the many rivers that flowed down from the mountains. From what she had been able to ascertain from guidebooks, this river was swift-flowing, with many tricky currents that could pull her under and never let her go. And it was lined with rocks enough that once she sank, her body would catch on something at the bottom and stay there. Her mind flitted back and forth between the black river and Light Yagami. She refused to believe, even though he had ordained her death, that he was a god. Perhaps he had been given some kind of otherworldly power, mad though that thought seemed. She would accept anything but Light Yagami's divinity. A divinity would kill openly. He would not hide and he would have no need for trickery. All of which Light Yagami seemed to thrive on.

With trembling fingers she felt for the needle that contained the tranquilizer. There was enough in the small tube to knock out a horse. She had kept it from her days in the FBI, but she would never have thought that she would use it on herself. In her hands now, it was a safety measure, to prevent her survival instincts from taking over when she struck the water, and she hated the very sight of it.

Her lips trembled as she stared up at the sky. It was perhaps four in the morning, and there was no way she could live long enough for another sunrise. The compulsion that had overwhelmed her mind with this desire for death was now taking control of her fingers. She was clutching the tube in her left hand and she could already feel her cold slender fingers pushing back her coat sleeve even as her legs braced themselves for the jump. She felt like a puppet capable of free movement, but only at the instigation of another. Light's face and thin smile were beginning to rise in her mind again, and the tip of the needle hovered just over her arm. She could not die with his face as her last thought; that would be more horrible than anything she could imagine. She had no will to fight the overwhelming urge to rush headlong into death, but surely she could summon up the strength to control her last thoughts.

Her hands were clenched into fists now and her whole body was trembling. The faint, almost undetectable pressure of the needle was on her skin now, and after the liquid entered her veins, she would only have a second to jump. And the force controlling her now would make her do it.

Gathering all her strength, she thought of Raye, her parents, and even the old woman at the bus station. As the needle sank into her skin with a pinch and her legs propelled her body off the rock, she fought desperately to keep her mind on everything she had known in the world. The feel of the gun in her hands as she had waited during an FBI raid. The racing of her mind as she tracked down a killer. The way Raye had smiled when she kissed him on the cheek.

She struck the water with a loud splash that was lost in the empty trees. For a few seconds her long dark hair was visible, swirling endlessly in the murky water before the river closed over her head and the ripples from her fall faded downstream.


End file.
